As voting ended on Thursday in Sudan’s first multiparty general election in 24 years, voters could be forgiven for feeling disappointed. The national vote, say opposition parties and some observers, was rigged, and it will likely cement the presidency of a man who has been indicted for war crimes. Still, the entire exercise was backed by the international community. Asked by a reporter last week whether the U.S. was “ready to sign off on the results no matter how flawed the actual process in this election” was, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley answered, “What is the alternative?”

The alternative that appears to have persuaded Washington and much of the international community to support the questionable election is a return to war in Africa’s largest country. Already, the crisis in Darfur has claimed some 300,000 lives, while 2 million have died in a half-century of civil war between Sudan’s north and south. Those numbers may have persuaded the international community to subordinate democracy to the cause of peace, but a slew of opposition groups withdrew from the presidential election ahead of the poll – citing repression and the expectation of vote-rigging – leaving no serious challengers to the incumbent, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. In the upside-down world of Sudanese politics, it was the party that fought hardest for democracy that pulled the plug on the country’s moment of “democratic transformation“: the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which led the south in a decades-long struggle against the regime in Khartoum, was the first to withdraw from the election, eliminating the candidacy of Yasir Arman, the man seen as able to present the strongest challenge to al-Bashir. Sudan’s ruler of 20 years, who last year became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, is now a presidential shoe-in. (See whether South Sudan can be the world’s newest nation.)

Reactions in some quarters have been harsh. The U.S.-based anti-Khartoum advocacy movement accused the U.S. of endorsing a “sham” election. The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, likened the task facing foreign observer teams to “monitoring a Hitler election.” Amid such criticism, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Major General Scott Gration, headed to Sudan to try to salvage the sinking electoral ship but ended up only enraging al-Bashir’s northern opposition by expressing his confidence that the vote would be as “free and fair as possible.” John Ashworth, a veteran of 27 years in Sudan now working for the IKV Pax Christi aid group, says the world should have known better. “Nobody (except ignorant foreigners) ever expected the elections to be free and fair,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Holding the election was required by the U.S.-brokered 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the second of two long civil wars between the country’s north and south. That conflict was the longest running of several between the Arab, Islamist government in Khartoum, which has lavished resources on itself and its capital city, and separatist groups across Sudan’s periphery, which have been marginalized for decades. (See how the election can spark peace in Darfur.)

The peace deal’s grand finale is to come in January 2011, when the south will hold a referendum on full independence. Southern secession is a painful prospect for the north, not only because of the loss of territory, but because most of Sudan’s oil output is pumped in the south. So, to its backers, this week’s election represents a vital first step on what promises to be a fraught road. “Without this election, there is no way to go forward to the referendum and the culmination of the peace agreement,” former U.S. President Jimmy Carter told TIME while monitoring the voting in South Sudan’s capital, Juba. “I’m not predicting tragedy, but I don’t have much doubt that if the entire CPA has to be abandoned, there will be conflicts re-emerging in this country.”

Read the whole hot breaking news

As voting ended Thursday in Sudan’s first multi-party general election in 24 years, voters could be forgiven for feeling disappointed. The national vote, say opposition parties and some observers, was rigged, and it will likely cement the presidency of a man indicted for war crimes. Still, the entire exercise was backed by the international community. Asked by a reporter last week whether the U.S. was “ready to sign off on the results no matter how flawed the actual process in this election is,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley answered: “What is the alternative?”

The alternative that appears to have persuaded Washington and much of the international community to support these questionable elections is a return to war in Africa’s largest country. Already, the crisis in Darfur has claimed some 300,000 lives, while 2 million have died in a half-century of civil war between Sudan’s north and south. Those numbers may have persuaded the international community to subordinate democracy to the cause of peace, but a slew of opposition groups withdrew from the presidential election ahead of the poll – citing repression and the expectation of vote-rigging – leaving no serious challengers to the incumbent, President Omar al-Bashir. In the upside down world of Sudanese politics, it was the party that fought hardest for democracy that pulled the plug on the country’s moment of “democratic transformation“: The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which led the south in a decades long struggle against the regime in Khartoum, was the first to withdraw from the election, eliminating the candidacy of Yasir Arman, the man seen as presenting the strongest challenge to Bashir. Sudan’s ruler of 20 years, who last year became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, is now a presidential shoe-in. (See whether South Sudan can be the world’s newest nation.)

Reactions in some quarters have been harsh. The U.S.-based anti-Khartoum advocacy movement accused the U.S. of endorsing a “sham” election. The ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, likened the task facing foreign observer teams to “monitoring a Hitler election.” Amid such criticism, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, headed to Sudan to try to salvage the sinking electoral ship, but ended up only enraging Bashir’s northern opposition by expressing his confidence that the vote would be “free and fair as possible.” John Ashworth, a veteran of 27 years in Sudan now working for the IKV Pax Christi aid group, says the world should have known better. “Nobody (except ignorant foreigners) ever expected the elections to be free and fair,” he e-mailed.

Holding the election was required by the U.S.-brokered 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the second of two long civil wars between the country’s north and south. That conflict was the longest running of several between the Arab, Islamist government in Khartoum, which has lavished resources on itself and its capital city, and separatist groups across Sudan’s periphery, who have been marginalized for decades. (See how the election can spark peace in Darfur.)

The peace deal’s grand finale is to come January 2011, when the south will hold a referendum on full independence. Southern secession is a painful prospect for the north, not only because of the loss of territory, but because most of Sudan’s oil output is pumped in the south. So, to its backers, this week’s election represents a vital first step on what promises to be a very fraught road. “Without this election there is no way to go forward to the referendum and the culmination of the peace agreement,” former U.S. president Jimmy Carter told TIME while monitoring the voting in South Sudan’s capital, Juba. “I’m not predicting tragedy, but I don’t have much doubt that if the entire CPA has to be abandoned, there will be conflicts re-emerging in this country.”

Read the whole hot breaking news

Johannesburg, South Africa and Juba, Sudan –
At nightfall today, voting in Sudan’s first elections in 24 years will come to an end. But the discussion of whether this five-day-long exercise was a legitimate election is just beginning.

From the earliest hours of Sunday it was clear that there were problems in the process.

Set aside the fact that most of the opposition were boycotting the elections in Sudan’s north, which they viewed as rigged. Registered voters, particularly in the south, complained after visits to multiple polling stations that they couldn’t find their names, and thus couldn’t vote.

Ballot boxes filled up faster than expected in places, because of the size of the ballot paper. The illiteracy of many voters, especially among women, and the fact that many Sudanese were casting votes for the first time, all of this slowed down the process, forcing the National Election Commission to extend voting by two additional days.

Yet, despite the hurdles, voters like Santino Atiang Dut Atiang seem determined to cast their votes. Mr. Atiang has carried his registration slip to at least 15 polling stations since voting started on Sunday, but has yet to find his name. Why does he continue? “I want to vote,” he says.

Read the whole hot breaking news